


and the stars fell

by i_am_not_a_bird



Category: Wings of Fire - Tui T. Sutherland
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Animus magic, Dragon Eggs, Dragons, Empath abilities, Future Visions, Gen, How Do I Tag, I don't know what I'm doing, Leafwings, Nightmares, Pantala, Silkwings, darkstalker-related angst, dragonets, legends: darkstalker aftermath, like fatespeaker sort of had I guess
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-23
Updated: 2019-01-29
Packaged: 2019-10-14 19:34:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,344
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17514650
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/i_am_not_a_bird/pseuds/i_am_not_a_bird
Summary: After saving the Pantalan dragons from the hurricane, Clearsight has been given a place on the new continent, helping them in the rebuilding effort. She's doing her best to adjust to this new, Darkstalker-less life. But she's still haunted by the memories of her former beloved, and worse still, she knows that a frightening future is coming. Something she can do nothing to prevent...(basically an au where clearsight is pregnant (is that the right word? can dragons be pregnant?) with darkstalker's eggs)





	1. Prologue

_Clearsight felt as if she was plummeting to the ground, falling through layers of shadow. She tried to scream or cry out, but her throat seemed to be clawed out, and the darkness was descending upon her. Darkstalker's voice echoed all around her, some from the current timeline, some from the web of possible futures that had all dropped away that night on the mountain. "It's like I'm not an animus at all, so my soul is safe." "You'll be Queen Clearsight, doesn't that sound alright?" "I can choose my own future, and I like the one I see, and you're going to learn to like it too. Where is my scroll?" "Kill them. Kill them now!" "All I can see around me, as far as the future unrolls, are slaves and soldiers." "Clearsight, stay in the present with me, please?"_

_"Stay_

_in_

_the_

_present_

_with_

_me."_

_Clearsight screamed. Her eyes, her mind were overflowing with dark eyes set starkly against silver teardrop scales. Broken promises, torn apart dreams, betrayal woven into copper wires... She sped up, falling faster and faster, plummeting through the darkness, until she couldn't breathe, her lungs were being torn apart, everything was blurring together into waves of darkness..._

_And then, suddenly, it stopped._

_She landed._

_There was a moment or two of dizzying stillness. She looked up. Dark eyes glinted in the shadow. She squinted, and she thought she could make out three shapes-- three sets of eyes, side by side in the dark._

_And suddenly, there was a thrumming whisper in the background. "Clearsight. Clearsight. Clearsight."_

_The figures began inching forward, pressing around Clearsight, and she felt drowned by the voices, more so than she was by the chaos and cacophony of the fall through the dark. This was more terrifying, more overwhelming, more..._ real _._

_"Clearsight. Clearsight. Clearsight."_

_She looked up, and her eyes caught the figure in the center. She could see dark evergreen eyes, like chips of emerald, looking straight at her._

_One voice rose above the whispers, and Clearsight swore the sound of it wrenched her heart out._

"Clearsight."

_And then the stars began to fall._

 

Clearsight woke with a start, looking around wildly.  _Where is she? Where'd she go?_ In a flash, she remembered those dark green eyes, and a panic struck her, grabbing her heart.  _She was jut here. Looking right at me._

 _But she's not real._ Clearsight took a few deep breaths to calm her hammering heart.  _They're not real, none of them._

_Darkstalker's long gone._

Taking another breath, Clearsight strode out into the main living area at the center of the camp. It was early morning, a little before dawn, and none of the Pantalan dragons were out and about yet. Clearsight basked in the familiarity of the scene.  _Remember, you aren't on Pyrrhia any longer. You're here, and you're helping these dragons out. You're helping the LeafWings and SilkWings. You're helping Sunstreak._

She walked out to the edge of camp, giving a glance backwards. Many new huts had already been constructed around the makeshift camp to replace the ones destroyed by the hurricane, joining the throng of existing huts that had been far inland enough to make it through. Clean-up crews had already started to clear the splintered trees and broken hut debris littered out on the beach, making room for new huts. Thanks to Clearsight's warning, Pantala was recovering quickly, and soon, all dragons would be moved from their makeshift nests to the new huts.

Construction process was still underway, and Clearsight was one of the few dragons left who had not moved into a hut. It was partially out of her own volition (she didn't want to seem like she was just wasting their resources) and partially just because no one had asked her to. She was no mind reader, but she suspected that many of the Pantalan dragons still felt a little uneasy around her, even if they were grateful she saved them from the storm. Some of them still didn't really understand her future-seeing powers. Time would have to be taken before they would fully trust her, the same way they trusted one another, and until that point Clearsight thought it would be better to take as little as she possibly could from them. She had gathered her own materials to build a nest, she contributed as much as she could to the rebuilding effort without ever actually taking a hut, and she hunted her own food instead of taking from their supplies.

Not that she had been needing much food recently. Clearsight's appetite had vanished ever since she arrived on Pantala, and it was an effort to choke down even the scrawniest rabbit. Clearsight was trying to tell herself it was just because she was nervous and her stomach was unsettled.

It couldn't be anything else.

Whenever she thought about that particular something else that it most certainly wasn't, she felt like her stomach was in knots and her mind was overloaded with visions of those startlingly dark green eyes, and she was absolutely not on board with that, no thank you, time to think about something else now, please?

It was early enough in the morning that no one else was out and about, which was lucky-- Clearsight was really just not in the mood to have to answer anyone's probing questions. She just wanted to be alone. She made her way down to the beach, not to hunt, not to do any cleanup, just to think. Something about the clear, salty ocean air reminder her of the Night Kingdom in a kind of nice, nostalgic way, not in a terrible missing-Darkstalker kind of way like most everything else in the world did.

She swept her tail through the sand, a mindless gesture to help calm her down after the terror of her nightmare.  _I have to remember that everything's okay now,_ she reminded herself.  _Darkstalker's not here any more, and I don't have to worry about what might happen or what he might do. I can live in the present now. I'm finally safe, with the Pantalan dragons. With Sunstreak._

But there was always, always, always that creeping feeling in the background of her mind. There was one future remaining that she worried about, a terrible awful future that she didn't want to happen, but that she thought was inevitable. Probably. No matter how many times Clearsight told herself she could just ignore it to make it go away, she knew that those paths only led to her starving, dying, and leaving the Pantalan dragons behind forever. In the end, no matter how terrible that future was, it was no choice at all.

The thing was, she didn't want things to change. She wanted everything to happy and predictable and absolutely free of all things Darkstalker, until she was safely over him and happy with her life Pantala. And if that future came to pass, things would inevitably change in all sorts of ways, and it would be back to the chaos, of the timelines with darkstalker, instead of the predictable, linear, here-are-the-things-you-have-the-power-to-change timelines of Pantala. There would just be too many variables.

Clearsight needed a distraction. She rooted through her bag and pulled out an empty scroll and a bottle of blue ink. Her was something was guranteed to relax her: maps! She had been wanting to map out the continent ever since she arrived there, because even if the Pantalan dragons had good maps, she probably wouldn't be able to read them.

She still knew very little about the layout of Pantala, other than the fact that it was very forested. But after so much time spent helping the clean-up crews clear the beach, she thought she had a pretty good grasp of the coastline, at least. She dipped her talons in the navy blue ink and began to sketch out the rough shape of the shore. Following the beach as she drew, she kept on going until her talons were too cramped to continue and her tired eyes were straining to focus. Then she decided she might as well stop and hunt.

The taste of seagull made Clearsight want to vomit after having to eat so many on the journey to Pantala, so Clearsight decided to head further inland and maybe try something else. She didn't want to catch any large prey for fear of not being hungry and not being able to finish it (which was starting to be a recurring problem for her), so she decided to start small. Just eating a pheasant or something would be good for her. Yes, Clearsight decided, if she could get herself to eat enough to sustain herself without going too overboard, this "unpreventable" future could actually be prevented, without having to starve.

After a while, Clearsight managed to find a rather lean rabbit. She began to strip the fur off with her claws. This was to get to the tender meat below without having to get hair in her teeth while she ate. She was also secretly hoping that the sight of meat, _just_ meat with none of that scratchy fur, would invoke her appetite again, but no such luck. Clearsight's mouth didn't water at the sight of the rabbit flesh, and her claws didn't shake from hunger as she worked, even though she hadn't eaten in at least a day. She just still felt full. By the times she was done and the rabbit fur was in a neat pile beside her, she still didn't find the meat appetizing in the slightest.

 _Why is this happening?_ Clearsight's talons trembled, and she blinked, hard and fast, willing herself not to cry. A terrible lonelily seemed to crash down on her. Why had she ever wanted to leave? She missed Darkstalker, terribly, despite all that he had done to hurt her in the end. His absence was like a void in her chest.  _He would know what to do. He would know how to help me._

 _Think of the earrings,_ Clearsight reminded herself harshly.  _By taking away your ability to see all possible futures, the thing that's the most important in the world to you, he betrayed you._

Clearsight shut her eyes tight, feeling tears leak down her cheeks despite how hard she was trying to stop them. She felt very small all of the sudden, like e she was not quite big enough or strong enough for this huge, terrible world. Why had this happened to her? Where had it all went wrong? Perhaps Darkstalker was right, and Clearsight had spent too much time in the future and not enough in the present. Perhaps if she'd truly trusted Darkstalker, instead of worrying he might go down those dark paths, then he wouldn't have gotten so bad, and she could have her beloved back.

There was no way for her to know. All Clearsight knew for sure was that she wanted Darkstalker beside her, reassuring her, telling her that she'd get through this awful unpreventable future.

But if Darkstalker were here, none of this would be happening. Clearsight wouldn't have left the Night Kingdom and wouldn't have become an explorer. Darkstalker had been holding her back from what she truly wanted.

If she just kept that thought as her anchor, everything would be okay.

Everything had to be.

 

Though she tried to ignore the rabbit fur that remained littered out on the beach, some instinct buried deep with Clearsight propelled her to gather it all up and use it to line the edges of her nest. She was satisfied to see the task to completion, and when she was done, the nest actually looked like something a dragon could live in. There was comfortable space for her and at least two others, if she invited them, but it didn't seem too spacious or empty, either: it was the perfect balance.

That night, she slept content in her newly-made nest, at least for the most part. No dark eyes with silver teardrop scales in their corners haunted her nightmares. The only eyes she saw were those of three small dark figures, tucked in the curve of her wings, looking up at her, murmuring her name.  _"Clearsight. Clearsight. Clearsight."_ Unsettling, but she felt somewhat safer about it this time. Like she had things in control. Like she had a plan to face this new terrible future.

It was only when she woke up that she realized what this might mean.

She looked at the neatly made nest, lined with the fresh rabbit fur, and her head began to swim with new visions.  _No. No, no, no, this can't be what this means--_ visions were cascading down upon her all of the sudden, filling her mind-- she saw what might be, what was going to be, the future she wouldn't be able to stop-- three figures in the shadows-- drowning in flamesilk--  _the stars were falling--_

"Are you okay?"

Clearsight blinked slowly, trying to steady herself. She recognized that voice. She knew the dragon it belonged to.

_Sunstreak._

"Yes, yes," she said quickly, breaking the tense silence that had fallen over them. "Everything's in tip top shape, no problems at all, why are you asking?"

Okay, that sounded terrible even to her.

Sunstreak frowned and took a step closer. "You... are worried," he said. His Dragon was certainly improving fast, although it still often took him time to search for the right words. "What wrong?"

"Nothing," Clearsight said, wringing her talons together. She knew Sunstreak didn't buy it. "Oh... alright. It's something. I'm just... Sunstreak, if I ever really really needed help with something, would you help me?"

Sunstreak gave her a warm smile. "Of course! You save us from hurricane. We owe you our lives."

Clearsight smiled and looked down at her talons, unable to bring herself to meet Sunstreak's eyes. "It's just... I wasn't going to tell you this, but I used to have a... a friend. On the old continent. At my home. And his name was Darkstalker, and he was... really, really bad. He hurt a lot of dragons, including me."

Sunstreak frowned and grabbed one of Clearsight's talons. "You... you fine now?"

"I'm fine, I'm fine," Clearsight said quickly. "He's gone now. I trapped him underground. But... he had so much power, Sunstreak. He was an animus dragon, so he could enchant anything in the world to do anything he wanted it to do. His power ended up driving him mad. And the deal is..."

Clearsight sighed. Her heart was pounding, and she didn't want to say it, because maybe if she didn't say it, it wasn't going to come true, right? If she didn't believe it, it couldn't happen. She'd just put it off and off and off and she wouldn't have to worry about that terrible future, because it wouldn't have to happen, right?

But no.

She was done being afraid.

Clearsight took a deep breath and straightened up, looking Sunstreak in the eye.

"I'm going to have his eggs."

The air leaked out of her lungs in one big  _whoosh_. It was real, it was happening, and there was nothing she could do about it, because she'd said it.

"I'm going to have Darkstalker's eggs, and I can't deny it any longer. So I was just... I need some help from you. From all the dragons here. Because they're going to be powerful, just like Darkstalker was, just like I am. Only I don't know how well they'll be able to control it."

Sunstreak gave her such a warm look, Clearsight thought her heart might melt. "We will help. Of course we will. You... you help us with storm. So we help you."

Relief filled Clearsight. "You still trust me? Even though these dragonets might be... like Darkstalker was?"

"We make sure they aren't."

Clearsight smiled, a real, true, honest-to-goodness smile. She wrapped her wings around Sunstreak's, pulling him into a hug.

Things were going to be okay. Eventually. Maybe.

She'd have it figured out. She'd protect her little dragonets, and make sure they never turned out to be anything like Darkstalker was. She'd teach them how bad it was to have that much power, and the punishment Darkstalker got for abusing it.

Clearsight could make this work.


	2. Chapter One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The dragonets hatch, Clearsight is unprepared for little Foeslayer's antics, and Shadowhunter learns something new about herself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> because it lists the prologue as "chapter one", the chapter numbers are all off and this is going to bother me until eternity

Clearsight was not entirely sure why dragonets had to grow up so darn  _fast_.

She was pretty sure it was only yesterday that she and Sunstreak were bent over a clutch of three beautiful round eggs, gleaming black like chunks of ebony under the starlight. When she lifted her shaking talons and ran them over the eggs' rough surface, she was overwhelmed with visions of who the dragonets would be. But it was a happy overwhelmed, an  _I am a mother_ and  _these are my dragonets_ and  _I hardly know them, but I love them so much already_ kind of overwhelmed.

And then they were hatched, three perfect little dragonets, their eyes like pools of starlight. And she'd struggled at the sight of them, to see little pieces of Darkstalker in them and to want more than anything to have her beloved back, watching over these dragonets with her. Dragonets that were just as much _his_ as they were hers.

But she'd gotten over it, with Sunstreak by her side. They were just so wonderful and perfect in their own little way. The largest of them, a playful dragonet with a dark green glint to her shiny scales, she'd named Foeslayer; Foeslayer's brother, a much calmer, more studious dragonet who had hatched a day layer than the others, was Saros; and the last one, the dragonet who was most like Darkstalker in her face and in her bearing, received the only name clearsight thought fit: Shadowhunter, synonymous with Darkstalker. A name that they'd once upon agreed to give their own daughter, in a rosy pink future where Darkstalker never went mad and Clearsight never had to see bucketfuls of blue IceWing blood splatter the stage like spray from a waterfall. A future where Shadowhunter wasn’t the daughter of a terrifying dragon who lived on only in nightmares, but the daughter of kind, loving parents and a wonderful father who would never do anything evil like trying to kill Vigilance or making his own father disembowel himself.

She worried about Shadowhunter, more than the others, at least. Saros was the most understanding and well-mannered of the three, her perfect little angel as Sunstreak always said. And even if Foeslayer was a little raucous and easily forgetful (much like her namesake), her heart was in the right place and she would never do anything she thought might actually hurt Clearsight. But Shadowhunter... Clearsight knew she was a happy and sweet young hatchling for now, but there were traces of Darkstalker in her, more so than the others. Many of her futures were much darker than Clearsight was on board with. She would just have to remind herself to focus on the present and what she could do with it. Shadowhunter would learn what it meant to have that kind of potential, that kind of power over the future, in time.

At first, the three of them were small and precious and wonderful, just like any dragonets. But they seemed to age in snap. When she came home with stripped rabbit flesh, they no longer guzzled it up unhesitatingly; Saros was full of questions about where she had got it and did it really used to have fur on it and did the SilkWings and LeafWings eat the same food as them, Clearsight? Did they? When she brought toys or play-things, they would no longer take as readily to them; Foeslayer was beginning to ask if she could lead expeditions out of the nest as an alternate form of entertainment (which Clearsight tried her best to stop, and she thought she was usually pretty successful, thank the moons). When she told them tales of their father, Darkstalker, and all the evil things he’d done, the glint in Shadowhunter's eyes was longer of fear, but of a mild curiosity.

However small it was, it was a dangerous curiosity. It was a curiosity that spun out into terrible futures with a whole lot more Darkstalker in them than Clearsight had ever wanted to bargain with, preferably ever.

She just hoped she still had things in control.

She had chosen the future she wanted and this was it, and she couldn't let the sacrifices she had made all go to waste.

She just had to keep drilling it into their heads.

_Darkstalker is bad. Darkstalker is a very, very bad dragon. Never be like Darkstalker. Never use any of your powers or strengths for evil. Stay in the light. Stay away from dragons like Darkstalker._

_Your father is a very bad dragon._

 

Foeslayer was pretty sure that all Clearsight wanted in the whole wide world was for life to be  _infinitely boring_.

"Stay in the nest," their mother would drone on and on. "Stay away from the Pantalan dragons. Don't leave while I'm off hunting. Don't talk to anyone while I'm off hunting. Don't do anything dangerous, ever."

But what was the point of life if they didn't go out and  _do things_ , no matter the danger?

Foeslayer wanted to feel the fresh air on her wings as she soared into a dive. She wanted to be in the jungle, for real, with all the scents and sights and sounds it entailed. She wanted to talk to whatever dragon she pleased, ask whatever questions she could think of, and do whatever she wanted to. She wanted to be an explorer. She wanted to discover things, just like Clearsight had discovered the continent of Pantala. There was a whole world of possibility out there; why couldn't her mother understand that? Why didn’t she let them leave the nest?

"You're too small," she would always say in response to Foeslayer's probing questions. "And it's dangerous. I don't want you out there until you can fly properly."

During the daytime, when Clearsight was out hunting or with the Pantalan dragons, Saros would try to placate her. "You know it's only because she's afraid, Foeslayer. She wants us to be safe," he explained one day.

"She's ashamed of us," Foeslayer declared. At Saros' wince, she said it louder. "She's ashamed of us! That's it, right? That's what you're not telling me. She doesn't want the Pantalan dragons seeing our disgraceful faces! Well, guess what? I didn't ask to be like this! I'd have wanted to be a normal LeafWing, not Darkstalker's dragonet!" She kicked a rock angrily.

Saros reached out, touching Foeslayer's shoulder. "Foeslayer, it's not like that..."

"It is  _too_ like that," Foeslayer said, staring out at the treelike. "Let's do it. Let's go out again."

"Clearssight is just going to catch us and bring us back."

"Not if we're smart and try to avoid her. Come  _on_ , Saros, don't be such a worrywart!"

"Why can't we just do what Clearsight says?" Saros' voice was taking on a whiny,  _can't-you-please-just-listen_ tone.

Foeslayer was about to respond with an angry retort-- something about how Clearsight didn't know anything-- but much to her surprise, she didn't have to. Shadowhunter, who she thought had been napping in the corner of the nest, spoke up for the first time.

"Because. If Clearsight had her way, we would all just be living in fear. She's so terrified of what happened with our stupid father that she wants to hide us from anything bad that could ever happen to us."

Saros looked uncertainly between Shadowhunter and Foeslayer. "She has a reason to be afraid," he said, a little unsure of himself now.

Foeslayer bit back a growl. "Look, I don't really care what you two think. All I know is that I'm tired of being holed up in here. I'm going to have a look around, a  _real_ look around, and you can come with me if you want to."

She strode away from the nest, doing her best to be careful and not stumble as she stepped out into the scrubby grass because that would kind of ruin the effect. She very pointedly did not look back at either of them, because she was going for a Big Grand Dramatic Exit and looking back would also totally ruin the effect. As she'd expect, she heard the sounds of talons  _clacking_ against the hard dry earth behind her. They came. Of course. Shadowhunter probably agreed with her, and no matter what his doubts were, Saros wouldn't want to be left behind while the two of them went off. Which was good. Foeslayer had to admit she felt much better with both of them by her side. Leaving the nest was something that Clearsight had absolutely, 100% forbidden until they were stronger.

But Clearsight wasn't here, and Foeslayer didn't have to listen to her. She would do it. She would go off on her own, and she would prove to Clearsight that they didn't have to live such a sheltered life. They didn't have to be so afraid of everything all the time.

"So? Where? Exactly? Are we planning on going?" Saros said, tilting his voice up mid sentence like he was asking several questions instead of just one.

Foeslayer paused. She hadn't actually thought about that. She hadn't really put a whole lot of thought into anything about this, to be frank. She had really only focused on the getting-out-of-the-nest part, as opposed to the what-to-do-after-that part.

"The village," Foeslayer said boldly, trying to appear as if she had had that particular detail planned out the whole time. "Where the SilkWings and LeafWings live. I want to know what they look like."

She'd only ever seen glimpses of a SilkWing called Sunstreak, visiting the nest to check up on Clearsight and the dragonets. He was thin and elegant and a very shimmery-sort-of yellow color, much brighter and more glimmery than anyone else Foeslayer had known. Of course, she had only ever known Clearsight and the other dragonets, and the most colorful among them was Saros, whose scales were so light in some places it was almost blue, and who had a line of white-blue scales along his snout and the ridge of his wings. He was also the most elegant of them, having a diamond-shaped snout, a thin body, and a tapered tail. Clearsight had explained that this was inherited from their grandfather on Darkstalker's side, Prince Arctic, formerly of the IceWings. The IceWings were supposedly very light in color and a lot more prickly and elegant, to hear Clearsight tell it. The only sign of IceWing at all in Foeslayer or Shadowhunter was that their horns were slightly more sharp and icicle-y and their tails were slightly more whip-thin at the end than their full-NightWing mother, Clerasight.

But that was nothing in comparison to how different Sunstreak was. His scales were so shimmery, they almost seemed to glow gold when they were struck by sunlight, and he had an extra pair of wings shaped like an insect's tucked under the first pair. As soon as she had heard there were more dragons like him, and other dragons who were even _more_ different, Foeslayer had wanted to meet them all. Imagine how  _exciting_ that would be, talking to real live silkWing! A dragon who was almost nothing like Foeslayer! She could just imagine all the stories the Pantalan dragons would have to tell her, brand new interesting things, things that were nothing at all like her boring, ordinary life in the nest. She couldn't wait to hear them.

But Saros was having none of that. "Excuse me, but if we go to the village, we're going to stick out like crazy!"

"Yes," Foeslayer said impatiently. "And that matters... why?"

"Those dragons all know  _Clearsight_ ," Saros said, rolling his eyes.

"...And that matters... whhhhyyyy?"

Saros gave an impatient huff. "As soon as they see that we're there, they're going to ask questions. Like where Clearsight is, and why we're not with her, and aren't we supposed to stay in the nest, and other stuff like that. We should go  _out_ , where there's no nosy dragons and no one to recognize us."

"Alright, smarty-pants," Foeslayer said irritatedly. "Why don't you just boss us around about everything?"

"I didn't ask to," Saros said defensively, crossing his talons awkwardly.

"Why would you ask a question only to harp at me for giving you an answer? Do  _you_ want to be in charge? Remember how big and scary it is out there, Saros," Foeslayer said mockingly.

"Lay off him," Shadowhunter grunted.

Foeslayer was about to say something angry in response, but then another voice cut in above them, startling her.

"And what exactly are you three doing out here?"

Foeslayer looked up and met Sunstreak's bright, glittery green eyes. She squawked loudly and shouted something along the lines of  _run for it_ , and the next moment all three of them were belting away from the makeshift camp where the nest lay and towards the safety of the tree line.

Luckily for them, they'd had the element of surprise on their side. By the time Sunstreak realized they had bolted, they had ducked into the cover of the trees and were scrambling to hide in a nook between two tree roots.

"Look where whining and yelling at each other gets us," Shadowhunter hissed under her breath as they shuffled to make room.

"Shut up," Foeslayer whispered back. "It's not my fault. Saros is the one who started  _talking back_ to me."

Shadowhunter arched her brow. "Are you forgetting that before  _Saros_ pointed out how much of a bad idea it'd be, you were perfectly okay with going to the village?"

Shadowhunter was right. Foeslayer let out a gusty sigh. Shadowhunter was  _always_ right, because Foeslayer was so darn  _scatterbrained_ all the  _time_ and three _moons_ , she was getting  _tired_ of it.

When she was sure it was safe and Sunstreak wasn't coming after them, Foeslayer crept out from the hiding place from the hiding place, her brother and sister just tail-lengths behind her.

"Clearsight's at the beach hunting and clearing up debris," she said matter-of-factly, trying to sound surge of herself to prove to Saros that she knew what she was doing. "So we shouldn't head there. We should go further inland, deeper into the jungle."

"I want to climb a tree," Shadowhunter said. "So I can try to fly."

Saros looked as if he was about to argue with her, but Shadowhunter shot him a glare. He shut his mouth firmly and looked downward, eyes trained on his talons.

"At any rate," Foeslayer continued, "we need to get away from the village, just in case anyone comes after us. Let's get going."

Foeslayer's talons were itching to explore. She wanted to see the sky, the sea, the animals of the forest Clearsight talked about. She wanted to see  _everything_. She could only imagine how amazing it'd be. The stories Clearsight told-- the nightmares she fed them day after day-- Foeslayer knew that they were nothing in comparison to the actual beauty out there. They just had to be. Clearsight was just a scaredy cat; Foeslayer had already seen the jungle, and it was not even a fraction as scary as Clearsight had made it out to be.

"Alright," she said boldly, her courage growing with every step. "I think we're far enough away now. Let's get climbing!"

Foeslayer selected a tree with some decently low enough branches, and a few feet away Shadowhunter did the same, with Saros pacing restlessly below them and mumbling something about how dangerous it was. As if there was anything to be truly afraid of! She could feel herself grinning as she scampered through the branches. She didn't care about flying or whatever it was Shadowhunter wanted to climb the tree for. She just wanted to glimpse the sky from the treetops, feel the wind against her scales...

And then, just like that, scrambling past a few branches so thin they could barely hold her weight, her head popped out above the trees.

_Whoa._

The forest was spread out in front of her like a map traced in the sand. The tree she had climbed was just tall enough to be able to see a spot where the trees thinned, far away, and their was just the faintest sound of crashing waves in the distance. Foeslayer could pick up a lot of sounds she hadn't been able to before, actually. Without the thick layer of leaves muting the outside noise, she could catch the  _whooshing_ of the wind, the hustle-and-bustle sounds of the village, faint birdsong, and, of course, the ocean.

It was beautiful and it was amazing and it was absolutely everything Foeslayer could have ever hoped for.

She nearly fell out of the tree, clambering to go forward, to go to the next tree over, to see more, to see  _everything_. She wanted to explore the entire continent. She wanted to meet every dragon that lived there. There was  _so_ much out there to explore— why couldn't Clearsight see that?

She wasn't sure how long she was up there, just soaking in the wonderfulness of the environment, but it couldn't last forever. She was jolted from her thoughts by a sudden, piercing shriek from far below.

_Saros!_

"Shadowhunter!" came his far-off cry. "Go faster! Run!" 

This was cut off by some muffled grunts and screams. Before even thinking about it, Foeslayer launched herself down through the branches, as fast as she could possibly go, so fast she was losing control of herself. Her tail caught against a branch, she slipped to the side, and she suddenly fell, plummeting down to the forest floor with nothing to stop her fall. She landed with a terrible crunching sound and a flash of searing, overwhelming pain.

And then there was a slash, and claws connected with her awkwardly extended wings, and there were cries of, "No, don't hurt her!" that sounded like Saros and some supplementary, "We're not outsiders, you don't need to hurt us, please, we're Clearsight's dragonets, we're not a threat, please!" and everything was painful and everything was slipping and Foeslayer blinked blearily and saw a blurry face that somewhat resembled Shadowhunter's, but that didn't make any sense because wasn't she supposed to be far away by now? Foeslayer was pretty sure that was what was supposed to have happened.

And a gruff voice was saying something in an unfamiliar language, and someone was cutting it off with, "No, we’re just dragonets, we didn't mean whatever we did wrong, please don’t hurt us" and all through it all there was a soft, panicked whisper in Foeslayer's ear, a female voice that was vaguely familiar to her, like Shadowhunter’s voice, almost, saying, “This isn't happening, this can't be happening, that's blood, that's blood blood blood and there's too much of it everywhere, Foeslayer no, you can't die,  Foeslayer it would be incredibly helpful if you could be okay right now..."

Foeslayer was losing her ability to focus. The voice began to slowly drain out, and the last thing she remembered was a panicked murmur of, "Don't die, you idiot, those wounds look really bad, please, please just  _heal_ _"_ before she was swept away into a haze of excruciating pain. It was like her bones actually were shifting under her scales. She let out an agonized groan and realized that, besides that sound, the clearing was now dead silent.

She forced herself to move away from the pain and focus on what was actually happening. The lack of noise was wrong, somehow. Something terrible must have happened. Her vision still shaky, she managed to pick up the shape of a dragon, and her eyes slowly focused in on Shadowhunter’s shocked face.

”I told her wounds to heal,” Shadowhunter brole the silence in a mesmerized tone, “and they _did_. They’re healing. They’re actually knitting back together right now.”

The stranger, who Foeslayer saw was a tall red-green LeafWing, garbled something unintelligible to her in a rush and jumped into a sudden, frantic flight back towards the village.

Foeslayer’s pain was dissipating and her head was beginning to clear. She was here, it was now, it was okay, and she had no broken bones or torn wings or anything terrible like that. She was completely okay, it seemed.

”Come on,” she said, heaving herself up into a sitting position. “What are we laying around for? Let’s get going. We’re running out of time.”

Shadowhunter and Saros exchanged equally dubious looks with each other, and for once, Foeslayer was pretty sure that Shadowhunter was going to be on Saros’ side.

She was, disappointingly, right in that count. “We’re going back,” Shadowhunter said, “ _right now._ ”

”But—“

”No buts.” Shadowhunter looked Foeslayer dead in the eye. “I just told your wounds to heal, and they _healed_. We are going home before something else abnormal or awful or completely insane happens.”

Foeslayer knew that there was no point in arguing with her. Sighing, she began picking the path back to the nest, Saros and Shadowhunter in tow, nursing a quiet bitterness against the stranger who just _had_ to interrupt them right when she was just beginning to have some fun.

But a small part of her was worried. She wasn’t 100% what she had seen through the haze of pain, but Shadowhunter had said that she her wounds on command, a power that only a very special dragon could have. A power that only animus dragons had, in fact.

The same power that drove their father mad.

Perhaps she was mostly just disappointed that their fun was cut off so soon. Perhaps she was barely worried about that power at all. But still, there was that small part of her, a concern that kept nagging at the back of her brain.

_What does this mean for us?_

_What does this mean for_ Shadowhunter _?_

_What’s going to happen to us now?_

**Author's Note:**

> The science of Clearsight's "pregnancy" is based off of how actual reptiles normally behave when they're carrying eggs. (lack of appetite because the eggs take up so much space, instinctive nest-building, not actually laying eggs until the conditions are right for it)


End file.
